Getting your head around the feedback changes.
eBay have announced BIG changes to their feedback system.
You'd have to be living under a rock to have not have heard about the changes to eBay feedback which was announced 30/01/08, changes to come into effect in February and May 2008.You can read the official announcement here
I wrote a blog entry on it as soon as I heard about it and even after reading hundreds of comments on the whole thing, I still stand by my views. Whilst allot of members are running around screaming that the sky is falling, trying to organise strikes, etc, there is a lot of good things in this change of system.
Let's break down and discuss the changes, starting with the one that has already come into effect, repeat feedback.
We all know that the best indication of an excellent seller is how many customers return to use that seller over and over again. I mean why on earth would anyone buy more than once from a seller who didn't delivery above standard service? The old system put the excellent sellers at a disadvantage (feedback wise) over the substandard sellers who managed to get in loads of buyers, but who no one wanted to ever deal with again. I know I'd rather deal with a seller who had a feedback score of 100, but total positive count was 500, over a seller whose feedback score was 500, but their total positives were only 550.
From now on you will get multiple feedback points from a buyer for transactions in different weeks. This means if a buyer buyers 10 items from you in one hit, you will still only get 1 points from the 10 positive feedbacks, but if they come back again next month and buy again you will get another feedback point from them and so on. By making the transactions needing to be at least one week apart to qualify cuts out the bad seller who a buyer happened to buy 5 items in their first transaction, but would never return to that seller again.
Next up - coming in May - feedback percentage to change. " The feedback percentage which calculates a member’s percentage of positive feedback will be based on the last 12 months only (not a member’s lifetime transactions as it is today)."
This one is self explanatory really, it means that where as someone may have a negative from 4 years ago dragging them down from 100% to 99.9%, now it will only apply to feedback from the last 12 months. The comments will still remain on the person's feedback profile, but it will not count in the percentage - Amen, to that one. I mean what is the point of striving to improve yourself as a seller, if you are going to be judged forever and a day on mistakes made over a year ago! Bad sellers will still get regular negatives that will reflect and the sellers who may have stuffed up in the past, can turn over a new leaf and be rewarded for their good service.
Finally we come to the controversial change, sellers will not be able to leave negative or neutral feedback for buyers. This change is what is getting sellers all around the world crying out that eBay have gone too far and now the site is firmly in favour of buyers.
To silence (well TRY and silence) the critics of this change, eBay have also announced that they plan to crack down on renegade buyers and rid them from the site.
eBay have made this change for a very specific reason, they want buyers to come back to the site, they want to increase the buyers experience on the site and they want buyers to be free to buy without fear of a "bad" seller ruining their feedback rating. The problem is that there are unfortunately many poor sellers out there who will try and cover their bad customer service by threatening buyers with negative feedback should they complain about them. A common tactic is to only provide a refund if the buyers FIRST gives them a positive comment.
This is damaging as if buyers are too scared to leave honest feedback on a sellers performance and they are bullied or railroaded into giving the seller positive feedback, then eBay find it very find to be able to weed these sellers out, plus new buyers will not have any idea of the problems they may encounter with the dodgy merchant. If buyers are treated poorly by a seller, they tend to blame eBay as a site, "I was ripped of on eBay", "eBay is full of dodgy stuff", etc, etc, they are NOT saying "Alibaba the eBay seller, ripped me off" or "Alibaba the dodgy seller sell dodgy stuff". They tell a friend, who tells a friend and it hurts ALL sellers. Bad press for the site, is bad press for everyone.
If sellers are not allowed to leave negative or neutral feedback for buyers, buyers can not be coerced into leaving anything other than honest feedback, and this means that bad sellers will start to collect allot more negatives. With other recent changes, sellers with poor feedback, will be subject to restrictions, suspensions, plus their items may get less viability in searches.
So let's address some of the biggest concerns that have been voiced by eBay sellers;
- What if a buyer doesn't pay? If your buyer doesn't pay you for the item, you should commence an unpaid item dispute. If the buyer fails to respond to the dispute, or responds but still doesn't pay, then you can go on to claim your FVF back from eBay. This in turn gives the buyer a strike against their name. Too many strikes and eBay will suspend the buyer. If the buyer doesn't respond to the unpaid item dispute and they leave you a negative feedback, eBay will automatically remove it for you.But how can I warn other sellers if I don't give Non Payers a negative? Let's get honest for a minute, what point does giving a negative feedback to a NPB (non paying bidder), really serve, if not to make the seller feel temporarily better. Busy sellers or casual seller or sellers who does know how, don't bother to check what sort of feedback the person bidding on their item has. If anyone ever bothered to do a survey on how many sellers check and then screen their bidders during an auction, I would bet that the percentage would be tiny. I never have time to look, I bet you don't either. So giving a NPB a neg, doesn't warn other sellers. In my opinion, the only point at all for buyers getting feedback in the first place is so that newbies get hooked on seeing their number go up and will return and buy again to increase their score. What if the buyer is abusive to me and I can't neg them? Again we get back to the purpose of using a negative as a tool. Who will see it and what can they do about it, if they do see it? Nothing. Negatives for buyers are generally futile. If a buyer is abusive towards you, firstly never reply to them via direct email, always communicate with them via the eBay system only, that way from an eBay point of view, there is a record of everything said between you. Let them know that you have blocked them from your direct email and that you will only respond to calm, non-abusive correspondence via the eBay system. If they continue to abuse you via direct email contact their internet service provider and lodge a complaint. If the emails contain treats and you feel there is any merit to them at all, contact your local police station.
- What if the buyer pays via Paypal and then charges back there payment after they receive the goods? This is one of the worst situations to be in and one of the only times as a seller I'd be tempted to leave a negative just in case someone read it, but there are answers, so don't panic. Firstly lodge an appeal with Paypal proving proof of delivery and follow through to make every effort to get your money back. Contact the buyer by telephone and let them know that the payment has been charged back, I have had it happen where the buyer didn't know and subsequently paid me via bank deposit while Paypal was getting sorted out. If you can not contact them due to the phone number not working, report the incorrect contact details to eBay, as this is a suspendable offense. If you get no joy from the buyer and the item was of value, then contact your local police department as if they knowingly take goods and don't intend to pay it is theft/fraud. If you decide to leave feedback - even though only a positive can be left - leave a negative comment in capitol letters, so even though it is a positive it will stand out on their record.
Once these changes take effect eBay will also take a dimmer view of any buyers who try and rort the system and use a seller's lack of feedback power against them. Amongst the tighter rules for buyers are;
- All negative and neutral feedback comments will be removed (not just de-scored) when a buyer doesn't respond to the Unpaid Item Dispute (UPI) process.
- All negative and neutral feedback comments left by suspended members will be removed. This will be done retroactively, so all negative and neutral feedback left by suspended members in the past will also be removed.
- Buyers will not be able to leave negative or neutral feedback within 3 days of the end of a listing. We expect this will help promote communication between the buyer and seller so they try to resolve their issues before leaving feedback.
- The number of days a member can leave feedback by will be reduced from 90 to 60.
- Sellers will have an increased block bidder list capacity (up to 5000 User IDs).
All in all this change in policy can only be a good thing for the site as a whole. Sellers have always had the ability to block certain types of bidders from their listings, so as long as you make sure your buyer blocks are up to date, I'm sure that you will encounter very little trouble for the changes. Remember on the odd time you do get a trouble maker, at least selling on eBay means you don't have to deal with them face-to-face ;-)
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